Making It Up As I Go Along #337

MONDAY...
— Quiet day. It’s my extra day off at work and I’d normally go in for a little overtime or banking some time... but today I’m just pretty tired so I stay home. I ended up sleeping around 9 hours last night... so that’s a little crazy.
— Go for a walk at Mer Bleue with Melissa, and get a few groceries.
— Get a call from work and I find out that I’ve been chosen as one of the people to move from AFIS to CPSIC in the near future. It will mean working a twelve hour shift, day and night, during the week and weekends. But it should also be quite interesting and comes with a pay raise... so I’m looking forward to it whenever it happens.
— 178 spam e-mails in one 24 hour period. It’s getting out of control.

TUESDAY...
— Another 190 spam e-mails today. Mercy!
— Work with Annick is fun enough. Pretty easy going and some laughs.

WEDNESDAY...
— Work alone tonight. It goes alright. Spent quite a bit of time early in the shift trying to figure out my move over to CPSIC. Should be fairly soon... and my trip home at Christmas is still okay... so it’s looking good.
— 185 spam e-mails today.

THURSDAY...
— Really tired and headaches today. It’s going around the office (again) with several people talking about sleeping all the time. So I stay home today to hope to sleep it off and get back to good.
— 185 spam e-mails again... but I shut down the computer early today, otherwise I’d probably have come up to 200.

FRIDAY...
— Improve today so I’m in to work. In fact, by the time supper comes around, I’m feeling pretty much my old self. Work with Annick until 7:30... then I’m alone for the night.
— Due to go to CPSIC Sept 22. It may be delayed a week or two from there but right now, that’s the date on the board.
— Down to 131 spam today... still though, 131!!!

SATURDAY...
— Quiet morning then out with Janice to the mall (a zoo)... we meet Cara Lea and head to Laura’s parents place for Laura’s birthday. Nice house in the country... with good food and lots of laughs.
— Spam continues to drop again... today it’s down to 92. Still a lot though.


Sleeping to CD Seas
Sundays are no longer Sundays. Not to me. Or at least they soon won’t be. Within the next month, I’ll be changing shifts at work. And my week will be turned upside down.

Right now, my Sundays have a particular pattern. I wake close to 9:30 and watch some CBC: Sunday. Come 10:00, I turn to the sports networks and check out what the sports reporters have to say about the last week of sport. 11:00 sees me switch to American politics for a while. It all depends on how much Wolf Blitzer I can endure as far as how much of it I’ll watch. Sometimes the worst journalist on the TV just can’t be tolerated, and I switch to a movie or begin my weekly writing. Usually, by 1:00 or 1:30, I am on the computer writing for the blog.

Work will change all this. I’m leaving AFIS and going to CPSIC (a 24 hour section in the same branch and dealing with more priority work). Perhaps CPSIC won’t work out for me and I’ll be back to AFIS within a few months. But I’m hopeful and confident that it’ll be good with me and I’ll spend the next few years there.

The problem with it is the changes in my week. With the change of a job, the seven day week I’ve known all my life will be replaced. The eight day week will be born. Two twelve hour days followed by two twelve hour nights and capped with four days off. I’ll be just as likely to be working on a Sunday morning as being off for it. The disruption of the routine makes me a little nostalgic for what I currently have. Pre-emptive nostalgia. My morning shows and Sunday writing ritual will have to be adjusted. The VCR will kick into gear... or a PVR will have to be purchased from Rogers, keeping my television recording current with the times.

The writing ritual will have to change as well. Currently, the plan is that when I switch to the 24 hour schedule, I’ll write my weekly update on my first of four days off. Although I may switch this thinking to the last day off before returning to the day shift. Either way, it’s about a month from happening. But the Sunday ritual for updating the blog is soon to end and the update will happen every 8 days instead of 7. Going from a Sunday to a Monday and onwards through the week.

On the plus side... four day weekends are soon here! Such a sentence would bring a high school bring celebrations with a high school student. It still sounds good but today, I think of how much of those four days I’ll have to spend trying to get back into a different sleeping pattern.

Sleep for the shift worker. We even had a presentation on it last year. Being told of ways we can more easily sleep in times our body isn’t used to it. CDs of white noise to drown out the rest of the world.

We were once told of the peace and quiet of sleep time. Now we’re looking at making a constant noise that we’ll get used to and ignore while sudden noises are kept in check by the swosh of the CD ocean or fake wind. A bubbling brook will urge me to the bathroom with great regularity, and destroy my sleep patterns on a whole new level.

Another suggestion is ear plugs. Fire alarms will try to warn you of impending doom but you’ll sleep through it until dreams turn to smokey visions... which fall away to a bright light that you’ll be urged to walk towards to spend the rest of eternity. Plus an ear plug will just irritate my ears. The weight of my head causing permanent indentations of plug in the ear.

Extra darkness will be my first attempt at increased sleeping abilities at 10:00 AM. A second set of curtains to keep my world in eternal darkness. I’ll wake each time unaware of where I am or when it is.

Changes are coming. We’ll see how my world unfurls.

Making It Up As I Go Along #336

MONDAY...
— Lazy day around the house... I worked on the shoulder and took it easy.
— Playoff slow pitch tonight. We lose, so we’re out. On the personal side, I get my first home run in this, the last game. A month away from fall ball.
— Laura was at the game to watch and then joined us for a drink afterwards. Nice to see her again.

TUESDAY...
— Up a bit early and waiting all morning and into the afternoon for Hydro to show up and change my thermostat. Annoying stuff as it makes me late for work. In the end, they don’t even come. I call and they say “it says here to reschedule.” And that means six weeks waiting. Hydro are not my favourite bunch of people today.
— The news speaks of what people want out of school. Teaching kids how to cook? How to be good people? What the recession is? Are parents insane? Do they want to do nothing with their kids? Seems like people want the school to raise the kids for them and they can just enjoy the finished product. Or maybe it’s parents who want to teach math from now on? Wacko.
— I work 4 to 11 tonight even though I was supposed to do 2 to 12. Thanks mostly to Hydro, I’m tired and cranky... plus it feels like I’ve got spider webs all over me from supper time on. So I go home at 11 and will make up the time Thursday (supposed to be my day off this shortened week but some make up time will be fine).

WEDNESDAY...
— Get new cleats this morning. Pretty good ones for a lower price. A few groceries after that.
— It’s hot today. Around 35 with the humidity.
— I work alone most of tonight. By 5:00 it’s just me. It’s good for the stats... I put on my headphones and go.

THURSDAY...
— Easy going morning. Go to work for 5.5 hours tonight. With the compressed schedule, this is actually a day off... so most of this time was just adding to vacation time down the road.
— Meet Karl after work for a drink.

FRIDAY...
— Little sleep... about 4 hours. And I’m off to work for 7:00 this morning. At 9:30 Annick, Sarah, Janice and I head to golf... the office tournament. It’s a good day for it. Sunny and hot (around 36 with the humidity). We have a good time and end up at +5 in the best ball tournament. Sun burn for me... but not a real bad one. And a quiet night at home with a little snoozing and TV.

SATURDAY...
— Lazy day. Naps and some movies on TV... and some working out.


We Need A Hero
It’s election time and we’re completely empty when it comes to political leaders on a federal stage.

Stephen Harper has begun the advertisements. He’s not attacking the opposition... not yet. He says he won’t, which means he’ll start doing it any day now. Harper is all about making a promise and then forgetting about it. Just look at the Atlantic Accord. And then there’s the law he put into place for fixed election dates (which is more than a year away but, oh well). Harper has always taken for granted the Canadian public’s ability to overlook and forget things. He talks about issues as if he’s trying to pass off issues to children who really won’t get it if he actually talked about it.

So these ads are Harper’s attempt to prove to the Canadian public that he is, in fact, human. Good thing that our leader needs to proof such facts. Other nations could be lead by bears or donkeys simply because they don’t make a point of showing the humanous of the candidate.

Not Harper though, he has people coming out describing him for us. They may be actors playing people... or they may be stupid people... or possibly they’re smart people who are being misrepresented by trickery in the art of video editing. But what we’re left with is such ground breaking quotes as “I like him.” “I like the fact that he’s a family man with small children”. “I’m proud to be Canadian.” And of course, because we’re now a military nation, Harper was lucky enough to find a World War II vet who happened to be sitting in the park with his medals pinned to his lapel. He also likes Harper... because he respects the military. It’s the spontaneous honesty that hits home. Brilliance.

At the end of that ad, Harper is seen sitting in a room, staring at a bookshelf with a grin on his face. He slowly shifts his head towards the camera... the only part of his body moving being his neck. The smile remained plastered.

In other ads, we’re blessed with only Harper sitting in that room with the bookshelf. He tells us about himself. That his boy would rather be with friends but Harper still convinces him to come in and play guitar while Steve hits the piano. Images like this bring tears to my eyes... so touching.

It’s disturbing when we need to have a focus on the fact that a politician is human. Time that could be used actually educating us on their views... on what they’ll actually do if elected... is instead used to describe a musical jam session with the boy or three second clips of staged people saying “I like him”. No wonder Steve lies about what he’ll do in office. He only has time to mention the notion of an idea before changing the subject to his favourite colour or how he likes his steak done on the grill.

The other leaders are no better. They may be more human than Harper but they’re no better when it comes to inspiring confidence.

Stephane Dion has taken a stance against those policies he doesn’t agree in... by abstaining from the vote. It takes powerful strength to just not bother showing up, and then it takes a lot of guts, to turn around and criticize the proposal you just did nothing about. All in the name of not causing an election. Dion says it’s because he knows Canadians don’t want that election. But Canadians know it’s because he can’t handle an election.

Today, watching Dion respond to the called election, he actually came across okay. That’s not to say he came off as a potential leader. It’s more like when you watch a very shy child stand up in front of a large crowd and get through a piano recital without making too big a gaff. You felt good for Dion for making it through without embarrassing himself. You didn’t feel any inspiration to have this guy lead our nation.

Then there’s Gilles Duceppe. The leader of the party that represents only Quebec. Only Canada would accept a federal party that only represents one distinct portion of the country. It’s too bad, because of all the leaders, Duceppe appears the most straight forward and credible when he talks. He doesn’t talk around a question as much as the rest of the group. I mean today, someone asked Harper if he felt Dion was also a family man... and it took five minutes of blathering about himself to get to it... and even then, he said that “I presume he is also a family man.” Good ol’ Harper, not even sure about whether the leader of the opposition has a family. Or not willing to accept the fact.

But it’s easy for Duceppe to appear straight forward when he doesn’t have to worry about representing any other culture or group of people. So a good leader, he is not.

On to Jack Layton. Today Jack stood in Gatineau with the Parliament buildings standing over his shoulder. A placard with his name stands at the microphone stand... just in case viewers had forgotten who he was. Layton often speaks the big game. The words coming out of his mouth sound reasonable and he comes across as likable. But he’s lead the NDP for too long when the NDP has remained in obscurity. On this day, it sounds like there’s about twenty people there live to react to his speech. He’d say something and a small group of whoops and hollers accompany some light applause. I heard a bigger reaction for myself at Friday’s golf tournament dinner after my name was called to win a DVD golf game. Poor Jack just isn’t listened to anymore.

Finally, there was Elizabeth May of the Green Party. She comes across as genuine. She didn’t have a real prepared speech with teleprompters. But she also appeared to be a hippy from another world. All that was missing was long hair and sunglasses for the people surrounding her. She kept on talking about our planet... how we can’t move anywhere else in our solar system and need to take care of this orb. I can’t say any of that isn’t true. But when you’re trying to be taken seriously by the general public, perhaps you should keep the solar system out of your speech when your aim is for a seat in the Parliament of a country.

So there’s our leadership possibilities. We have a group that includes one who needs to try to prove he’s human and another who talks to us about other planets in our solar system. Canadian politics, it literally is out of this world.